


If They Were Villains

by YouCould



Category: If We Were Villains - M.L. Rio
Genre: Gen, I was planning for this to be kind of funny but it turned out angsty instead, Implied/Referenced Character Death, a group of old dellecher students talk about the murder?, gen - Freeform, i honestly don't know, set about two years after the end of the book
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-12
Updated: 2018-05-12
Packaged: 2019-05-05 20:03:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,971
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14626035
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/YouCould/pseuds/YouCould
Summary: Four previous Dellecher students who had studied with the Villains for the first two years before not making it to third year meet up, and they discuss the mystery behind the murder of Richard Sterling.





	If They Were Villains

**Author's Note:**

> I honestly I have no idea, I hadn't written anything in more than a year. I'm honestly so sorry about whatever this is.

It’s the 26th of April 1999 when Lin, Andrew, Thomas, and Grace all sit down in a tiny coffee shop in New York city. It’s the first time they are all together in what, two years? After they’d all been cut out from Dellecher at the end of their second year, they’d kept on seeing each other fairly often at first, but as life went on and they all slowly started to find ways to keep going, with or without theatre, their meetings had become more and more sparse. Now, almost four years after their expulsion from Dellecher, Lin sits near the window with a cup of tea in her hand, watching Thomas across from her and wondering how their lives would have been different if they’d just made that cut. Grace and Andrew make their way over to the table, Grace quiet as always, Andrew’s eyes sparkling with excitement.

“You won’t believe what I found out last year,” he says, as he puts down his cup and takes a seat next to Lin.

“I’m sure you’re about to tell us,” Lin remarks before turning towards him, resting her face on her hand.

“I mean, this is old news. So like, you might know already.” Andrew back-pedals. He used to do the same thing when they were at Dellecher: volunteer for a scene, confident he would do fine, and then suddenly crumble under the weight of his audience’s expectations. If Lin had to pinpoint the reason why he didn’t make it to third year, it would be self-doubt.

“Just tell us, Andy.” Grace cuts in, raising her eyebrows at him. She’s still as regal as she was then, all sharp edges and focused gaze. She’s an English teacher now, and Lin really doesn’t wish to be in her students’ place.

Like compelled by an unstoppable force, Andrew swallows, and eventually says, “You remember that super clique-y group? Those seven who were always hanging out together?”

Lin has a vague idea of what Andrew is talking about. The hot red-head, and the tall guy, and the Disney Prince, and their other friends. Yeah, Lin remembers well enough, so she nods. Who knows what happened to them.

“They ended up killing each other,” Andrew continues, eyes wide, and okay, that wasn’t the answer that Lin was expecting. “Two years ago, during their last year.”

“Shit, do you mean that guy finally snapped?” Thomas asks, looking half amused and half horrified. “What was his name, Dick?”

“I think you mean Richard?” Grace contributes.

Lin remembers him well enough. Tall, dark, and lowkey terrifying. “Well, he was a real dick, though.” She says.

“No, that’s the thing. He’s the guy who got killed,” Andrew continues. He’s making small, contained gestures with his hands, that still betray his excitement.

“Oh, my money is on the redhead. I bet she killed him.” Thomas says.

Andrew shakes his head a second time. “No, no. You will never believe who it was.”

“Who?” Grace says. She’s doing her thing again.

Andrew looks at all of them, then says, dramatically, “Oliver Marks.”

“Who?” Grace repeats, this time more confused than compelling.

Lin is also at a loss. It’s not that the name _Oliver Marks_ doesn’t ring any bells, it’s just that she really can’t quite place him. _Oliver Marks,_ she thinks, trying to remember anything about the guy.

“No joke, I almost couldn’t remember who it was at first. Skinny, dark hair…” Andrew starts.

“Oh, wait, I remember him now.” Grace cuts him off. “He made it to fourth year? Yeah, I’m not surprised there was murder involved.”

Grace has always been quiet and attentive, but most importantly, well, savage. It was one of the reasons why Lin had spent most of their first year harbouring a painfully embarrassing crush on her, and she can still see how a comment like that would have made her heart flutter four years earlier. Now, as Lin thinks of Kelsey waiting for her at home, it just makes her laugh. Which is horrific, by the way. You don’t laugh about murder.

“I still don’t know who you’re talking about,” she says, raising an eyebrow at Grace.

“That one guy…” Grace says, furrowing her brow in concentration. “James Farrow’s sidekick, you know?”

And okay, Lin wonders what she’d been doing at Dellecher, because James Farrow doesn’t sound particularly familiar either.

Noticing her confused expression, Thomas bursts in with, “Oh, come on, you _must_ remember James Farrow.” Lin’s face must remain blank, because he continues, “Blond? Beautiful? A literal Disney Prince?”

And maybe it’s Thomas’s dreamy eyes, or the epithet _literal Disney Prince,_ because Lin finally associates a face to the name. And if she focuses a little…

A memory finally emerges in her mind: a sunny day, towards the end of their second year, when a bunch of theatre students had taken advantage of the wonderful weather to study at the lake, spending more time laying at the grass and studying the occasional cloud than looking at their books. Lin had been sitting with Grace and Andrew, while Thomas had disappeared with whoever his current boyfriend was. She remembered Richard, sitting with the attractive redhead – _Meredith, Meredith was her name_ – and playing with a strand of her hair while her, with her head in his lap, read out loud from whatever book of critical theory they’d been assigned. They’d just started dating, then. Other students threw sideway glances at them, wishing for the most beautiful girl in their year to read out loud to them, instead. And on the dock, sitting with one leg pulled up and the other tucked under him, his blond hair gleaming in the sunlight and making him look like a renaissance painting, was James Farrow, the dream of almost every girl and at least half of the boys at Dellecher. He was meticulously running through his notes, trying to ignore the awed glances that almost every single student couldn’t help but throw at him. Every once in a while he looked up, just to say something to someone sitting in front of him, with a half-smile on his face. And there, responding to or perhaps causing Farrow’s smile, Lin sees Oliver Marks, taller than James and yet somehow smaller. She remembers it clearly, the two of them basking in the sunlight, quietly studying their notes and each other, a perfect picture of friendship and devotion. _Perhaps more,_ she’d thought then. _Perhaps more,_ she thinks now.

The memory, so clear and peaceful, is disconcerting after Andrew’s words. Lin swallows. “Yeah, I remember them.” It’s all she says.

“I think I remember Marks too,” Thomas says. “He was cute.”

Grace rolls her eyes, and ignores him. “So what happened?” She asks Andrew.

“Well, they said Richard had gone kind of crazy after he didn’t get a part he wanted, and that it was self-defence.”

“That’s not that surprising,” Lin says, shrugging. She remembers Richard being temperamental, more than she remembers Marks being a potential murderer.

“But the thing is, Marks tried to hide it for months,” Andrew continues, “at first they thought Stiriling had just gotten drunk and fallen into the lake, and months later Marks confessed that he’d just, smashed his head in with a boat hook.”

“You said that this happened at the lake?” Lin asks, and Andrew nods. The memory comes back to her, Farrow and Marks sitting together on the dock, smiling at each other in the golden light. A moment of frozen perfection, so different from the tragedy that Andrew is talking about. Suddenly, Lin feels sick, and she downs a big gulp of tea, hoping that the warmth will unclench the tension in her chest. It doesn’t quite work.

“Fuck, Marks looked like such a chill guy. You don’t expect him to be the type of person who smashes someone’s head in.” Thomas says, looking down at his coffee.

“Some people think that maybe it wasn’t him,” Andrew says. “Apparently Marks was having an affair with Richard’s girlfriend, Meredith. And no one really knows what happened, so some people think Marks took the blame for her, or maybe for someone else. Rumour has it that when they arrested Marks, they’d planned to arrest someone else instead, and he just went out and confessed. It’s all real fishy, I tell you.”

“How do you know all this?” Grace asks. She’s talking to Andrew, but her gaze is fixed on Lin, perhaps having sensed her discomfort.

“I was writing a piece on theatre schools in America,” Andrew shrugs. Right, he writes theatre reviews now. “Thought I’d include Dellecher. I had no idea what happened, but my editor pulled up all our articles on the case when I showed her my draft. I spent an interesting afternoon.”

“I bet,” Thomas says. “Wow, that was dark. Does anyone know what happened to Farrow?”

Thomas used to have a crush on Farrow, Lin remembers. Which is understandable, it’s just that Lin was always too busy sneakily checking out Grace to even notice.

“There’s not much in the papers about him,” Andrew says with a shrug. “But it must have hit him hard, because he’s definitely not doing any work related to theatre, and we all know that he was too good of an actor to just fail.”

Thomas nods silently, before getting distracted by his phone. “It’s Matthew,” he says as an excuse before getting up to take the call. His boyfriend, the doctor who allows Thomas to still work in communal theatre without having to worry too much about money. It sounds bitchy, but Lin thinks that the truth is that, deep down, she’s a little jealous of Thomas.

“Well, ladies,” Andrew says, picking up his cup. From where she is, Lin can smell the strong aroma of black coffee. _Strange_ , she thinks. Andrew only used to drink Latte. “After that cheerful note, why don’t you tell me how you guys have been doing?”

And after that, the conversation shifts, and Oliver Marks and Richard Stirling are forgotten.

***

It haunts Lin for days, and it’s stupid, because she barely knew them years ago. And yet. And yet she keeps thinking back to that day at the lake, and then about Richard Stirling floating in the cold waters, his head smashed in. Oliver Marks was a sweet boy, not with the potential of a lead actor, but with the kindness of a supporting characters. And Lin can’t see him hurting anyone. For a while, she considers showing up at the penitentiary, and shouting at Marks until he gives her the answers.

Instead, she settles on a letter. Just a few brief lines, explaining her confusion, and asking _why_. She doesn’t expect an answer.

***

Months later, Kelsey finds a brown envelope in the mail, and passes it to Lin, equally curious and confused. Lin only has to look at the first few lines to recognise the text inside: it’s a Shakespearean sonnet. And it’s signed, _Oliver._

Lin reads through the lines again and again, memories of her days at Dellecher surfacing as she does. In the end, she doesn’t quite get what the sonnet is meant to answer. _Perhaps_ , she thinks, _she’s not supposed to_.

 

_No more be grieved at that which thou hast done._

_Roses have thorns, and silver fountains mud;_

_Clouds and eclipses stain both moon and sun,_

_And loathsome canker lives in sweetest bud._

_All men make faults, and even I in this,_

_Authórizing thy trespass with compare,_

_Myself corrupting, salving thy amiss,_

_Excusing these sins more than these sins are._

_For to thy sensual fault I bring in sense—_

_Thy adverse party is thy advocate—_

_And 'gainst myself a lawful plea commence._

_Such civil war is in my love and hate_

_That I an áccessory needs must be_

_To that sweet thief which sourly robs from me._

**Author's Note:**

> The sonnet is sonnet 35, by the way! It's not *exactly* perfect for the situation but I thought it fit well enough. If you want, come and chat with me on my tumblr: justamessyreader.tumblr.com


End file.
